


Luna Lovegood and the Legacy of Ravenclaw

by cedi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Voldemort, BDSM, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 10:24:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14330451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cedi/pseuds/cedi
Summary: Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin both left secrets behind at Hogwarts: The Sword and the Snake. But what about the other two founders? Is there more to their legacy than just the wondrous school of wizardry they helped build? And if so then what would it be? Books filled with the mightiest spells and texts about the most arcane of arts, monstrous beasts and traps or just heaps of gold and silver? Or maybe even something as abstract and simple as a home?Luna has never asked herself these questions, there never was any need for it. But maybe she should have, it might have prepared her for the trials ahead.Or given her the sense to turn right around and run for the hills.





	Luna Lovegood and the Legacy of Ravenclaw

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of a shorter chapter to kick this thing off.  
> Also, there will be no Voldemort and Harry Potter isn't the boy who lived, instead he's a well adjusted young man with a nice family.

Luna Lovegood was in a slight panic, a state of mind she wasn’t at all accustomed to, and one she decidedly never wanted to get used to. The reason for her agitation was twofold. For one, tomorrow was the first of September. Second, she still hadn’t finished packing, something that she normally did quite early on in her summer break.

But this year she hadn’t been able to do that. They, her father and she, had spent the entirety of her time away from Hogwarts in South America looking for a specimen of the Bluefire Treesnake. A truly amazing animal which had, at one time, claimed all of the Amazon rainforest as its habit and had been the root for many of the indigenous people’s countless legends.

On their search for the legendary snake they had visited a few of the hidden muggle villages that dotted the Amazon Basin, and had spoken with numerous grave-faced men that had tried to frighten them away with their grim tales of dangerous wildlife and dead adventurers. But these threats hadn’t scared Luna and her father away from the chance to see the spectacle of the snake’s blue fire dancing in the night, dipping the foliage in a mysterious light.

No, the fear of a few old muggles would never keep them away from something wondrous like that.

They had searched far and wide for many nights, spent countless hours sitting hidden in the gently waving crowns of the jungle trees, or slowly bobbing along the riverbank on a magical raft. And even though they never even caught a glimpse of their quarry, she had never been bored. The stars, more vivid then she had ever seen them before, had been her companions in these dark hours. Them and the piercing calls from the many night active animals calling the Amazonas their home. No, the time spent there had been truly magical, an experience that she wouldn’t have missed for all the riches of the world, but it had also meant that she couldn’t contact her friends at all during the break. She missed them terribly, especially her best friend Ginny, and would have loved to have them right there by her side. They would surely have loved it as much as her. At least everyone but Hermione, she probably wouldn’t have been able to see past her preconceptions and would have nagged the whole time about the ‘useless endeavour’.

She felt slightly bad for thinking that, and vowed to be extra nice (and forgiving) to the other girl this year.

But lack of contact hadn’t been the only problem. No, she also hadn’t been able to visit Diagon Alley for her books and other school materials. So she had, with a heavy heart, owl ordered her school books from Flourish and Blotts. Normally Xenophilius and she would make an entire day out of getting them. They would eat a hearty breakfast at the Leaking Cauldron, though they always brought their own drinks as Tom didn’t sell gurdyroot juice, and then freshly strengthened tackle the alley and its many shops.

They would spend hours at Obscurus Books, breathing in the dusty smell and peruse their extensive catalogue of rare and valuable books. The shop’s atmosphere was so very much alive and spoke of the countless ancient secrets that lay between the store’s book covers, waiting to be discovered by an intrepid woman with an open mind. It was completely and absolutely different than the soulless air of Flourish and Blotts.

Finally, they would always end their shopping trip with a stop at Florian Fortescue’s Ice Cream Shop, and enjoy one of his heavenly, very unhealthy treats.

The books had arrived without a problem sometimes during their absence. The delivery owl had, as she had requested, dropped the books into the enchanted box on top of their tower shaped house. Her father’s teleport enchantment had worked flawlessly and deposited the books directly into her school trunk, where she had found them today.

Over the last hour the books had gained the company of most of her clothes, some of it was still in the wash, her cloaks, her spectrespecs, a few bottles of ink and rolls of parchment, her jewellery and even a few fresh and vividly green gurdyroots. The only thing she missed now was her favourite quill, the absence of which was the source of the slight panic she felt. So far she had searched every nook and cranny in her room for it. Even under her mattress, just in case it had been stolen and hidden there by an extra devious nargle, but to no avail.

After searching every possible (and impossible) hiding place in her small room a second time, she had to accept that the quill probably fluttered out her door at some point, maybe even the day she had arrived home from Hogwarts. So she, with a last look over her shoulder at the door to make sure it hadn’t just appeared on top of her desk, moved her search to another floor.

She decided to search her father’s office first, after all it would make for a good hiding place for a cheeky little quill. His workspace occupied an entire floor, which it had to, since it also served as the Quibbler’s headquarters, printery and mailroom.

She stopped high up on the stairs, using her elevated vantage point to take a first look around. The circular room had four small windows, one at each cardinal point to let the spiritual energy flow properly through the creative space. It also held two large wooden desks, which groaned under the tall, heavy, softly seesawing stacks of books, reports and old issues of the Quibbler. On the floor, she weaved carefully between the countless trinkets and artefacts and stacks of printing supplies that were meticulously placed on the hardwood floor, in a system that only her father really understood.

She traced a finger along the magical printing press, scrunching her nose in disgust at the dust she found there and cooed softly to the machine as if it could understand her assurances. “Don’t worry little darling, daddy’s going to put you back to work soon enough.”

While she came across a full dozen of lost quills during her search, none of them were hers. And so she made her way unhappily to the next room.

The sun had already set by the time she had finished her search of the second to last room. Not because the house had that many of them, but because she had searched each room more thoroughly than the one before. She had done so because of an annoyingly insistent little suspicion that she knew where her quill was, a suspicion that she fervently hoped to be false, and which had reared its ugly head shortly after she had abandoned the search in her father’s office.

The suspicion was that the quill had found its way into the attic, where her father had stored all of Pandoras’ belongings.

Now, she sat cross-legged in front of the ominous gate to this room, chewing on her lower lip and studying the plain wooden barrier with a mixture of fear and sorrow. She wondered if the quill was worth going in there for, was worth the emotional pain she would surely suffer from going in there. Sure, the quill was her favourite, but she could certainly use a different one, right?

She stood up with a heavy sigh, wrong, she couldn’t. It wouldn’t be the same.

With a wildly beating heart and a shaky hand, she opened the door to the attic that hadn’t seen a visitor, besides the occasional fairy or nargle, for the last ten, twelve years, and stepped in. The air in the dark space smelled musty and was full of the dust she had whirled-up when she had opened the door. She sneezed hard after getting just a single lungful of it.

The room was completely dark, not even the smallest glimmer of light shone through a crack in the floorboards or the roof. It felt eerily similar to a Mayan tomb she had visited with her father.

“Lumos,” her whispered spell forced a powerful and immensely bright spark to appear at the tip of her wand. She guided the beam along the dark shapes in the room, to her anxious mind the shadows seemed to part very unwillingly and retreated just a fraction of a second to late. But still they fled from the light, as was their nature, and in their absence they unveiled several cardboard boxes, bags of clothing and strange tools. She startled heavily and barely managed to hold back a girlish shriek when the beam fell on a tall mirror, showing a fearful, ghastly pale face to her, which she belatedly recognized as her own.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity to her, the circle of light came to rest on her quill. A quill that simply laid there, in the middle of the room atop a small, plain book, as if someone had just been writing in it, and had only put it down a few seconds ago to get a class of pumpkin juice.

Saying that this situation unsettled her would be the understatement of the year.

She dithered for a few moments, wondering if she should get the spectrespecs from her trunk, or if she should just dart in and grab it.

The second option won out, she might not be a Gryffindor but she still wasn’t a scaredy cat. But before she could implement her plan, a thought got pried lose by the mention of the house known for its member’s bravery. She was a Ravenclaw! And they solved their problems with brains, not with muscles or simple bravery.

“Accio quill!” The quill zipped instantly into her outstretched hand, but to her surprise it wasn’t the only flying object in the room as the little book had apparently also decided to follow the magical order. It too flew straight into her chest. She grappled with it for a second and managed to get a good hold on it moments before it fell past her hip.

She lifted the unassuming book up to her face to get a better look at it and found a small, loopy inscription on its front. She let out a heavy gasp when she deciphered the ornate lettering and made sense of the words, they spelled: “Pandora’s Hogwarts Diary”

Her mother’s diary from her time at Hogwarts. Her mother’s diary! The realisation hit her like lightning bolt! She would be able to learn more about her mother, about the things she loved and hated as a young girl, about her daily worries and the moments of pure joy she had experienced. And she could learn all that through the woman’s very own words, safeguarded from the ravages of time and death by the pages of this unremarkable looking book.

And, most importantly she wouldn’t have to ask her dad and open old wounds, nor would she have to dig through dusty old boxes filled with the slowly decaying hopes and dreams of a young mother, of a beloved wife and a family that had been oh so cruelly shattered by the mysterious workings of fate.

She held the book tightly to her chest, closed the attic’s door with a lazy wave of her wand and made her way down the spiral staircase to her room. The quill laying forgotten on the dusty floor, a few steps from a door that would once more be left untouched for many years to come.

In her room, Luna reclined on her bed with the book still tightly pressed to her chest by her crossed arms, as if she was worried that, any moment now, it might grow wings and slip her grasp and escape into the wild never to be seen or heard from again, just like a Goldwinged Fairybook.

Her heart beat franticly against her ribcage, like a dozen manic pixies trapped in a tiny birdcage, in fear or anticipation she could not say. In an attempt to calm her nerves she let her eyes wander over the mural on the ceiling that she had drawn a few years before. So far the loopy golden lines spelling the letters for ‘friends’ and the portraits of Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville and Ginny intertwined within them had always done so in the past.

And this time too did the friendly faces work their magic and calmed her mind, heart and soul. Although her pulse was nearly normal once more, her hands still felt clammy and slightly shaky when she opened the book on its first page and began to read.

 

* * *

 

She nearly overslept the next morning. Which would have been disastrous considering the Hogwarts Express left every year at exactly eleven o’clock, come hell or high water. But luckily the night before she had not only forgotten to set her alarm, but also to close the shutters in front of her only window, and as a result had been roused by the feeling of happy little sunrays tickling her nose.

She hopped out of bed with surprising élan, considering that she had only slept a few hours in the early morning. She had spent the rest of the night deciphering her mother’s smudgy scribblings that told of the wondrous adventures the little girl had in her first year at Hogwarts. Though, calling Pandora’s handwriting scribbles wasn’t entirely fair, as her writing had improved over the year by bounds and leaps. By the end of the second year it had already surpassed Luna’s current handwriting in clarity and consistency.

Before she went to the bathroom Luna made a short stop at the window, opened it, leaned out and greeted the sun with wide open arms, “Thanks for the wakeup call, big sister.” She said towards the sliver of molten gold that had made it past the mountains in the distance.

She closed the window and made doubly sure that they were tightly closed, she wouldn’t return to her room for an entire year and her father probably wouldn’t notice if they sprang open during her absence. He’d probably just spend an entire year wondering why it was so draughty in the house all of a sudden. She also tied a bouquet of bulrush, fanged geranium and praesidium maniplis to the window handle with a strand of her hair. According to one of her books, this charm would keep most of the magical vermin at bay until she returned.

After a good breakfast and a last glass of truly fresh gurdyroot infusion she floated her heavy trunk out of the house and into the backyard. Her dad was already out there, removing the many warding trinkets and spells from their outdoor fireplace. She gave him a hand with the heavy stone bricks that always filled the fireplace’s interior and which made Floo traveling to it impossible.

She could never understand why other wizard families didn’t do the same; didn’t they realize that the ministry’s Heliopaths could spy on them using the Floo network?

Once they had removed all the bricks and made sure that the chimney wasn’t obstructed by a bird’s nest, as had happened before, her father conjured a roaring fire and handed her a handful of Floo powder.

She embraced her father tightly and said her farewells to him, as Xenophilius wouldn’t accompany her to the train station. Leaving an open fireplace with both of them out of the house was way too dangerous. The ministry would send their goons to search their home the moment they would hear of it.

“Goodbye daddy. Take care of yourself and please remember to eat, alright?”

“Of course little moon. I promise.” He said and returned her hug with surprising strength for his gaunt frame. He kissed her on the crown of her head and added, “Be careful Luna, and write to me if you need anything, okay?”

She smiled brightly at him and nodded, of course she would, but she doubted that she would find reason to do so. Anything that Hogwarts didn’t supply itself she could easily buy in the quaint little village of Hogsmeade.

She flung the Floo powder into the blazing flames and stepped into them once they had turned a bright emerald colour. Her dad handed her the heavy trunk with a slightly sad smile and waved a last time to her, before the world rapidly spun away into mad smears of colour.

After a felt eternity the wildly moving riot of colours came to a sudden halt and the weird blobs of paint reformed back into the world she was used to. But the unusual movements and chaotic gyrations of the trip had left her off balance and when she tried to step of the wrought iron grille she overbalanced and missed the single step in front of the fireplace. She scrambled to find a handhold, but the smooth stone interior of the chimney offered little purchase. So instead she flung her hands forward to lessen the brunt of the fall as much as possible and braced herself for the inevitable pain.

Which surprisingly enough never came, as Tom, the owner of the Leaky Cauldron, deftly caught her with a single arm moments before she would have hit the hard floor. In the same movement he leaned over her prostrate body and pulled her heavy trunk out of the fireplace with his free hand. He was a surprisingly strong man for his age, she thought, to be able to pull all this off without even the slightest groan or stagger.

He swiftly set her upright and smiled impishly at her, showing of his few remaining teeth.

“Still haven’t mastered the Floo, eh lassie?”

She smiled at the old man. “Doesn’t look like it, and I doubt that I ever will.” She brushed one hand through her slightly grey hair in an attempt to dislodge as much ash and soot as she could. “Or that I’d ever want to.” She added at seeing her blackened fingers. “I’d much rather fly than travel by this hellish bit of black magic.”

“Ah but Miss Luna this certainly ain’t dark magics. Old Tom would know, you can believe him that!” He said with a strange, thoughtful look in his eyes. After a few moments he shook his head like a wet dog and offered her a question, “May I interest you in a butter beer, little missy?”

She glanced at her watch and shook her head in denial, “Not today Tom. I really need to get going or I’ll miss the train. Bye.” She tried to take hold of her trunk, but Tom waved her off with a smile. “I’ll carry this to the door for you. Me ma reared little Tommy right!”

The pair of them wove past the few witches and wizards populating the dimly lit restaurant and out the front door. There, Tom handed her the heavy trunk, which she accepted with a mumbled ‘thanks’, and vanished back into the murky interior of the Leaky Cauldron.

She pulled her wand from her pocket and tapped it once against each of the coffers sides. Tiny wheels sprouted at the back-end of the trunk, and rapidly grew to a size that would be able to support its weight. And a few moments later, it merrily jolted down the rough cobblestone road behind Luna, towards the large train station and the Hogwarts Express beyond, which was already waiting there to deliver them safely to a new school year.


End file.
